Thursday, December 31, 2015

‘The Boston Miracle’

The programs that have best managed to reduce gun violence use a public health approach to target the young men most likely to be involved in shootings with a combination of assistance and policing. Almost all of them are modeled on Operation Ceasefire, an initiative that started in Boston in 1996 and ended four years later. Its many spinoffs have produced results in cities across the country even as attempts to pass national gun legislation have fallen short.

A recent ProPublica story highlights the accomplishments of Operation Ceasefire and its incarnations in other cities, as well as the difficulties community leaders have had in maintaining federal support for the programs.

Operation Ceasefire was a collaborative effort between Boston police, black ministers and social scientists, who came together in 1996 to curb rising youth homicides. Instead of focusing on guns, they looked at the people. Research shows that a small number of young, gang-related men are responsible for the large majority of murders. And so, the coalition of law enforcement and civil society leaders began by identifying them -- the “small groups of young men most likely to shoot or be shot,” writes reporter Lois Beckett.

Ceasefire’s leaders then used a carrot-and-stick approach to confront the at-risk individuals in person. They would “promise an immediate crackdown on every member of the next group that put a body on the ground -- and immediate assistance for everyone who wanted help turning their lives around,” Beckett writes.

The technique yielded such dramatic results, it earned the nickname “the Boston Miracle.” In the following two years, the average number of youth murders per month declined 63 percent, Beckett reports. The Department of Justice gave the program high marks, characterizing it as one of just a few crime prevention programs that has a proven record of effectiveness.

Monday, December 28, 2015

In a year-long study, The Washington Post found that the kind of incidents that have ignited protests in many U.S. communities — most often, white police officers killing unarmed black men — represent less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings. Meanwhile, The Post found that the great majority of people who died at the hands of the police fit at least one of three categories: they were wielding weapons, they were suicidal or mentally troubled, or they ran when officers told them to halt.

The Post sought to compile a record of every fatal police shooting in the nation in 2015, something no government agency had done. The project began after a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, provoking several nights of fiery riots, weeks of protests and a national reckoning with the nexus of race, crime and police use of force.

Race remains the most volatile flash point in any accounting of police shootings. Although black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year, The Post’s database shows. In the majority of cases in which police shot and killed a person who had attacked someone with a weapon or brandished a gun, the person who was shot was white. But a hugely disproportionate number — 3 in 5 — of those killed after exhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic.

The three rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination showed enough sense of responsibility in their debate on Saturday to freely discuss the nation’s epidemic of gun violence. Unfortunately, this was only half the debate voters deserve. The Republican candidates are callously ducking the issue. Among the recent casualties of such silence was a bill in Congress that would have lifted a ban on basic federal research into gun violence and its toll on public health. For nearly two decades, Congress has banned needed research on gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last week, Congress, doing the bidding of the gun industry,quietly killed a provisionin the omnibus spending bill that would have reversed that ban.In so doing, it left intact an anti-science smoke screen that has helped the industry and its lobbyists deny and dispute the facts of the gun violence that takes more than 30,000 lives a year.Imagine if the tobacco industry had been similarly favored by Congress with a ban on federal research about cigarette deaths. Imagine, too, if the auto industry had such a shield during the years when the government successfully fought unsafe cars in the cause of public health.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

At a time when kindergartners are being gunned down in classrooms and the scourge of mass shootings is on everyone’s mind, one Michigan man felt it was his duty to terrify the students and teachers in his child’s elementary school by bringing in a loaded pistol when he arrived. The school’s staff at Homer Community School District reportedly questioned his intentions with the gun – as seems reasonable when your job is to protect children from being shot – and the parent, whom the police have not identified, grew indignant. According to him, even being asked about his weapon violated his right to bear arms and he insisted that it was his “right to have it there.” He did, however, eventually leave.

He clearly gave it a lot of thought because he showed up to the school on Monday… still carrying his ****ing gun. The school’s staff, reasonably concluding that this could pose an unsafe situation for kids, were forced to lock down the entire school.

Although the parent was receptive and showed up to the school for the meeting with [Superintendent Robert] Wright, he brought a holstered gun again.

“And lo and behold, he showed up with his weapon holstered … it was never out of the holster,” Wright said. “And at that point I had to inform him that our protocol is that we go into lockdown just for pure safety of all of our students and staff, and so we went into lockdown at that point.”

“They asked him to sit in the front lobby and they went into lockdown,” Saxton said. “He left when he heard them go into lockdown.”

Insanely, this is considered “functional” in Michigan. The school was told by law enforcement officers to continue locking down the building each time someone comes into it with a gun. The law still says the school has to let those gun owners in. They legally aren’t allowed to enforce a rule that keeps guns out. And here we have another lesson in what it means to be free in America. Men are free to wander freely around an elementary school with a loaded weapon if they want to. Children are free to sit scared inside a locked classroom, avoiding windows and doors, waiting to find out if the guy outside is trying to murder them or just pick up his son or daughter for soccer practice.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

So what is it about us? It’s clear that the NRA is actually half-right in their slogan, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” We just need to modify that to: “Guns don’t kill people — Americans kill people.”

It’s not the movies or the video games or the gruesome crime scene photos on CSI that drive us Americans to kill each other. It’s fear. Why would one want to own a gun in the first place? Well, fear of being robbed or assaulted or killed. Wanting to protect yourself or your family. You know, “just in case.”

But in case of what? Remember, the statistics show that the most dangerous threat to you is sitting over there on the couch right now. We have nearly 123 million homes in the US. There are only about 600 home invasions here each year that result in a gun-related death. And in nearly half of those incidents, the deceased was killed by the gun that was in the house to protect… the deceased!

Friday, December 25, 2015

Virginia will no longer recognize concealed-handgun permits issued by 25 other states, its attorney general announced Tuesday, a stark change in a state known for its expansive gun rights.

Attorney General Mark R. Herring, a Democrat and a strong proponent of gun restrictions, used his authority under state law to bar permit-holding residents of the 25 states, which span the country from Alaska to Florida, from carrying concealed weapons in Virginia. He is revoking Virginia’s so-called reciprocity agreements with those states.

“We hear that we don’t need new gun laws, we just need to enforce the ones we have,” Mr. Herring said in a telephone interview, echoing the argument of the gun rights movement. “Well, I’m going to be enforcing the ones we have.”

Mr. Herring made the decision, his office said in a statement, after “months of research and evaluation,” including an audit of 30 states whose concealed-handgun permits have been considered valid in Virginia. All but five of them, he said, grant permits to people who would be barred from carrying concealed weapons in Virginia. He called revoking the agreements a “common-sense step.”

A judge upheld Seattle’s so-called gun violence tax Tuesday, rejecting a challenge from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups.

King County Superior Court Judge Palmer Robinson dismissed arguments that Seattle’s tax, adopted last summer, exceeded the city’s authority under state law.

The measure — one of only a couple of its kind in the nation — adds $25 to the price of each firearm sold in the city, plus 2 or 5 cents per round of ammunition, depending on the type. Officials expect it to raise up to $500,000 a year to help offset the costs of gun violence. The measure is set to take effect next month.

“The NRA and its allies always oppose these commonsense steps to shine light on the gun violence epidemic,” said City Council President Tim Burgess, who sponsored the law. “Judge Robinson saw through the NRA’s distorted efforts to put gun industry profits ahead of public safety.”

Saturday, December 19, 2015

The Law Center then looked at the rate of gun deaths in each state, tallying homicides, suicides and other accidental shootings from the Centers for Disease Control's 2013 Fatal Injury Report, the latest year for which data is available. The report found that the gun death rate tends to get higher as firearms laws get weaker. In fact, the average gun death rate in states with failing grades was more than twice as high as it was in those with A grades.

Over the past few years, far more women have favored banning semi-automatic weapons. A full two-thirds of women favor a ban compared to only 48% of men, according to a 2013 Pew study. Indeed, women tend to prioritize gun restrictions over gun rights generally, unlike their male counterparts. Couple this with the fact that the vast majority of mass shooters are also men, and a pattern emerges. America’s gun problem can’t be distilled down to one single issue, of course, but it’s clear that on top of crime and fears of terrorism and insufficient mental health resources and the Second Amendment, America’s gun problem has something to do with America’s masculinity problem.As Alankaar Sharma, a social worker and researcher, tells Quartz, “Possessing a gun is considered by many men, if not most, as a straightforward way of subscribing to dominant masculinity.” In his view, the patriarchal system, which privileges a certain set of masculine behaviors, values, and practices, provides men with “a clear and justifiable reason to own guns.” It cements their identity as masculine men.

And for many men today, it’s an identity in particular need of cementing. In this May 2015 op-ed for The Los Angeles Times, sociologist Jennifer Carlson argues that men are clinging to guns as a way to address a broad range of social insecurities. Author of a book on the social practice of gun-carrying in America, Carlson found that gun owners often characterized their fathers’ generation as an era when men had important roles to play as providers and breadwinners.

Friday, December 18, 2015

In the debate about gun control, many gun enthusiasts argue that the Second Amendment to the Constitution was written, not for the purposes of hunting or even self-defense, but specifically to give people the ability to rise up against the government when they no longer support that government.

These gun enthusiasts further hold the reference to the word militia in the Second Amendment refers to the armed populace in general. As such, this militia has the right to own the type of weapons that would be required to overthrow the government if need be.

Let’s take a look at exactly what the Founding Fathers put in the Constitution and other laws about the Militia:

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution lists among the powers of Congress: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Article II, Section 2: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;

Amendment 2: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment 5: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger;

That is every reference to the Militia in the Constitution. The description of the Militia in Article I sounds very much like our country’s National Guard. It is supposed to be well-organized with officers and training.

Not only does the Constitution not say anything about bearing arms to use against the government, it specifically says the Militia can be called upon by the President to suppress insurrections against our government.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

A California pastor was accidentally shot during a gun safety class earlier this month.

Instructor Phillip Rushing of the Personal Protection Institute in Modesto had just replaced his rubber training gun with a real pistol at the end of class when someone asked about how to handle an attacker with a knife, the Modesto Bee reported.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Finally showing its hand on a case that’s been relisted time and again over the past several weeks, the Supreme Court today announced it will not hear Friedman v Highland Park, a challenge to a Chicago suburb’s ordinance against the possession, sale and purchase of politically incorrect semiautomatic firearms and standard capacity magazines.

Monday, December 14, 2015

A former Pennsylvania police chief infamous for his profane video rants — punctuated by gunfire — against “libtards” has been arrested on harassment and terrorist threat charges.

Mark Kessler was charged last week on one misdemeanor count of harassment in connection with an Aug. 19 confrontation with a Frackville borough councilman at a supermarket checkout, reported the Standard Speaker.

Kessler accused the other man, William Creasy, of talking about his daughter, and he said the former Gilberton police chief shoved him in the chest and wagged a finger in his face, police said.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

One of the guns used by ISIS terrorists to slaughter 130 people in Paris was once owned by a Florida-based online firearms dealer with close ties to the NRA.

The M92 semiautomatic pistol — made by a Serbian arms factory — was imported into the U.S. by Century Arms, a Delray Beach-based company in 2013, the head of a Serbian arms factory revealed Friday to The Associated Press.

It remained unclear how the weapon made its way back across the Atlantic — and into the hands of Islamic militants.

Marc Adler, president of Allan Adler, a Boca Raton consulting firm that specializes in firearms, said legally taking a handgun out of the country involves reams of paperwork and approval by numerous federal agencies.

“The export of firearms is very heavily regulated,” Adler, who questions how the gun could have legally left the country, told the Palm Beach Post.

President Barack Obama's advisers are finalizing a proposal that would expand background checks on gun sales without congressional approval.

White House adviser Valerie Jarrett says the president has asked his team to complete a proposal and submit it for his review "in short order." She says the recommendations will include measures to expand background checks.

According to authorities, Brightwell was trying to get Mount to stop smoking in the restaurant when he pulled out a 9 mm handgun and shot her. She was taken to Merit Health Biloxi, where she was pronounced dead.

Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove said she died of a single gunshot wound the head.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

A Fox & Friends demonstration where children neutralized a gunman during an active shooter situation offered dubious advice to parents, as experts emphasize that confronting the gunman should be "a last resort."

The Fox News segment never explained that in an active shooter situation people should prioritize escaping and hiding over physically confronting the gunman -- only mentioning the first two actions in passing -- and instead emphasized engaging the gunman in a physical confrontation.

The December 8 broadcast of Fox & Friends featured two krav maga instructors and three children who demonstrated martial arts techniques that could be used to disarm an active shooter.

Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck introduced the segment saying, "In an active shooter situation five seconds can mean the difference between life and death. But there are some things that you can do, and your children can do, to make a difference" before asking the instructor to "display for us and exemplify what would happen in an armed shooter situation." The instructor then used a stapler as a prop while his co-instructor demonstrated how to disarm a gunman from behind.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

"If these were perfect lists, that would be one thing," he said. "But there are over 700,000 Americans on some watch list or another that would all be captured under this amendment the Democrats offered. And that's the problem."

We wondered if there were really 700,000 Americans who could potentially get caught up on a terrorist watch list and be prevented from buying guns under Democratic legislation.

Rubio’s count is way off. The number of Americans on the consolidated terrorist watch list is likely in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands.

We reached out to Rubio’s team, but they didn’t get back to us.

By the numbers

The FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center maintains what is colloquially known as the terrorist watch list. The Terrorist Screening Database is a consolidated collection of information about people known or reasonably suspected to have some level of involvement in terrorist activities. The no-fly list is a subset of the terrorist watch list.

The terrorist watch list is the one the attorney general would pull from when deciding whether someone should be denied a firearm if there’s reasonable belief that the person would use that firearm for terrorism, under the Democrats’ bill, said Ashley Schapitl, spokeswoman for bill sponsor Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The terrorist watch list pulls information from numerous government agencies in the United States and around the world, so American citizens and legal residents only make up a portion of the list. A pretty small portion, in fact.

A Terrorist Screening Center spokesman declined to comment on the watch list’s current size, but we found an estimate on a 2011 FBI fact-sheet that put it at 420,000 individuals. Of those, only about 8,400 were American citizens or legal residents. The no-fly list subset included about 16,000 names, only 500 of whom were Americans.

Monday, December 7, 2015

We calculated a score for each state based on the political donations of the people who live there, using campaign finance records from 2004 to 2016. Scores range from 10L (most liberal) to 10C (most conservative).

We then mapped these 'state political leaning' scores against official data on gun-related deaths per capita. As it turns out, there is a significant correlation (.66) between a state's political leaning and the number of gun deaths it registers.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

Though revenge porn is what ultimately did Zimmerman's account in, it's hardly the first reprehensible thing he tweeted. Here are some Zimmerman Twitter low points:

The Time He Re-Tweeted A Photo Of Trayvon Martin’s Body

Zimmerman retweeted a photo showing Trayvon Martin -- the teen whom he shot and killed in 2012 -- lying dead in the grass. The photo was originally posted by Twitter user @SeriousSlav, who included the caption “Z-man is a one man army.”

Zimmerman tweeted a quote by Obama, in which the president noted that more people die from gun-related threats in the United States than from terrorism. Instead of attributing the quote to Obama, however, Zimmerman cited “Ignorant Baboon.”

The Time He Appeared To Call His Victim, Trayvon Martin, A “Moron”

“We all know how it ended for the last moron that hit me. Give it a whirl cupcake,”Zimmerman wrote in response to a Twitter user who referenced slapping Zimmerman for "Slap-An-Idiot Wednesday."

The Time He Promoted His Confederate Flag Paintings

Zimmerman teamed up with the owner of a self-proclaimed “Muslim-free” gun store in Florida to sell prints of his painting of a Confederate flag in August. On Twitter,he claimed his painting “represents the hypocrisy of political correctness that is plaguing this nation.” Sure, George. That’s what the Confederate flag represents.